The hot dry outback with its red dusty, dry creek beds and flies. Cool mornings and evenings. Brilliant sunrises and sunsets. Clear starlit skies, full moon, so close yet so far away. A moonlit walk across the sand-dunes, utter silence, a vast sky of stars - the southern cross stretching across the horizon. The milky way, thousands upon thousands of stars. Orions belt. The silence and whispered voices, magical, mystical Mungo. Darkness is a great insulator.
Very, very lonely - emptiness for miles - treeless plains, Willy-willies moving across the land - a furious tunnel of dust sweeping across the parched earth. Peaceful, untouched country. Beautiful cloud formations. Birds and bush noises, small horse flies. Sun and warmth, brilliant white sand dunes. A trail of footprints. Up and down, crisscrossing. Boy's laughter, sand everywhere, boy's charging down the steep sides. Falling, rolling, rolling. Landslides! Dad's not too old to join in the fun and constantly throws them off the ridges. "Again, again", they yell. Much laughter.
Sweet smell of death. Dried up water holes. Sadness. Rotting flesh. Explanations of how fossils are formed. Deep discussion on death and petrification. Children fascinated, mum and dad sickened. What a lesson! Flies, flies, flies. Decreased rabbit population. 3500 burrows destroyed by bulldozing - what a mess of the park, the rabbits will return. Foxes lean, hungry, unafraid. Death of a frogmouth. The car clipped its wing - as it swung in front of the headlights chasing a moth. Deep sadness, wing badly broken. Handled gently - such beauty. Boy's in tears. Nothing we can do - Terry explains and whilst boy's move back to the car gently ends its suffering. Back to nature.
Wind, whispering, talking. Trails of ants. Emu's, kangaroos, eagles. The singing call of the magpie. Crows. Wild goats. Snakes. Scorpions. Picnic lunches. Solitude and loneliness. Peace. Boy's chasing rabbits. Inspecting a fox den. Cold wind, scudding clouds. Bone fragments bleached white. A fossil imprint of some sea creature, long ago implanted upon a stone. The boy's fascinated. Walking and talking, laughing and shouting. Walking together, smiling at one another, unsaid words passed as we look over the children's heads. Emptiness for miles. Stories. What was it like 20,000 years ago? Would we have clothing, fire? Could we build a boat? Would we fish? Collect shells? Eat rabbits (explanation no rabbits nor foxes at that time!!) Dinosaurs - how would we catch our food? What would we look like? Imagination comes into play. Geoffrey plays the game, Mattie wanders off - he's too old to play such games - but he's never too far away that he can't listen and break in with an idea or two!
So come with me now and step through my pages below and discover a special place of the dreamtime ...
Lake Mungo